Drug Crimes

Brockton Massachusetts Drug Crimes Defense Attorneys

Free Consultation – Defense Trial Law Experience You Can Count On

If you are being investigated, questioned or charged with a drug crime in Massachusetts, you are facing serious consequences. These consequences may be further enhanced depending on the amount of drugs you are alleged to have possessed. If convicted of a drug crime in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you face consequences ranging from a loss of your driver’s license to imprisonment. We understand the serious nature of the crime you are being charged with and will respond quickly and aggressively on your behalf to prepare your defense strategy for trial.

In order to achieve the best possible results for our clients, our attorneys take a thorough look at all aspects of your case. We will obtain experts to provide an objective analysis of the evidence. Small details, such as weighing drug evidence in your case could reduce the charges and any potential punishments.

Besides a complete exoneration of the crime, our experienced drug crimes attorneys may be able to undermine the prosecution’s case against you enough for the charges and penalties you face to be substantially reduced. Our legal team also will ensure that you do not face inflated charges adding on due to over zealous prosecutors.

Search Warrants

In order for a warrant to be valid it must meet the following requirements:

A neutral and uninterested magistrate, clerk or judge must sign off on it;

An adequate showing of probable cause must be presented to the magistrate, clerk or judge and;

The particularity of the place to search and the items (drugs in this case) to seized must be sufficiently described in the warrant.

Given the following requirements, a warrant can be challenged one of two ways. If your attorney can show that the warrant was so lacking in probable cause that any belief on the part of the magistrate or the police of its existence was entirely unreasonable then any evidence obtained as result of a search based on that warrant will be suppressed. The second attack challenges the truthfulness of the facts alleged on the warrant. It must be shown that the police officer that presented the warrant to the magistrate, judge or clerk made a false statement either knowingly or with intentional disregard for the truth. Now an inadvertent misstatement by the police officer or a false statement provided by an informant won’t be sufficient. And if the false statement on the part of the police officer wasn’t needed to make a showing of probable cause, or if probable cause would have been established even without the false statement, then false statement won’t serve to invalid the search warrant.

Particularity Requirement

The whole reason behind the search warrant process is to prevent overzealous police from conducting arbitrary and unjustified searches. The law sets out particularity requirements that are meant to prevent the police from going on such witch-hunts. It requires warrants to issue particularity describing the items that are to be seized and the place that is to be searched.

The items that are to be seized must be set out with particularity in the search warrant. This is in order to limit the discretion of the police to the maximum extent possible. A warrant that allows police to seize anything related to drug activity would give police wide ranging discretion to determine what objects are associated with drug activity. A generalized warrant like this would allow the police to determine that a laptop, notebook or safe is something that could be associated with drug activity and is therefore within their discretion to seize. The particularity requirement is put in place to leave nothing to police discretion. By limiting the search to only those items particularly listed in the warrant police are only allowed to look in those places where those items could be found. So if a warrant lists a particular type of drug that is the reason for the search than it would be unreasonable for police to look at contents of a notebook or computer in an attempt to locate that type of because that type of drug could never be found in a computer or notebook.

The place to be searched must be set out with particularity in the search warrant. The warrant must designate and sufficiently describe the building, place, car or house to be searched so the office can, with reasonable effort, identify and determine the place meant to be searched. The reason for this search is to limit the officer’s discretion by making a general search impossible. The particularity requirement must eliminate any probability that other places, not intended under the warrant, might be mistakenly searched.

No matter where you are located, we are just a phone call away. Call us to schedule a free no-obligation case review and consultation at (508) 584-6955 and you will have taken your first step to find out how best to confront this important matter. You can also click here to use our Free Case Evaluation Form.

Our knowledgeable and experienced Massachusetts Drug Offense Lawyers at The Noonan Defense Firm are available to assist clients throughout all of Southeast Massachusetts, including but not limited to Brockton, Taunton, Bridgewater, and East and West Bridgewater, Hingham, Weymouth, Quincy, Plymouth, Marshfield, Attleboro, Canton, Stoughton and all smaller cities and rural areas in Southern Massachusetts. We also serve the counties of Plymouth, Norfolk and Bristol, Massachusetts.